Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Quick, copy and paste it

The very prolific Antony Loewenstein's 11 most recent posts – one is an embedded video with no text – copied and pasted into Word total 2,279 words, of which only 190 words, or 8.3 percent, were written by Loewenstein. Put another way, almost 92 percent of Loewenstein's content is copied and pasted. And so slap-dash is Loewenstein's copying and pasting that he often fails to remove advertising blurbs, which remain embedded in copied text:

Loewenstein can't write and is incapable of critiquing or analysing the writings and views of others, yet is regarded as something of an authority on a number of disparate topics ranging from the Middle East to internet censorship to Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Sadly, anyone relying on Loewenstein as a source of information on any topic is automatically dumbed down. This is one of the great drawbacks of the internet: how to differentiate good information from bad.

Hey, maybe Loewenstein's publisher, Melbourne University Publishing, should get him to write a book about his worldwide influence. It could be called Melbourne University Publishing and Antony Loewenstein: The Great Dumbening.

I almost get embarrassed for morons whose work is mainly comprised of huge slabs of copypasta. Sometimes they leave the "Advertisement: Story continues below" blurb in, sometimes[1][2] they leave the endnote numbering[3] from Wikipedia[3][10] in.

So, I'm looking into his pronouncements and pontification about Sri Lanka's war here:

http://tinyurl.com/677r2nw

The best example of AL's doublethink is this:

“Free speech is a delicate beast that must be constantly nurtured and defended. Our society can handle robust engagement on a host of issues. Some will offend Jews. Some will offend Muslims. Some won't offend anybody. Hurt feelings shouldn't be a crime.”

He routinely censors comments on his blog with which he disagrees. Ordinarily that would be reasonable - his blog, his rules. But for a guy who built his entire career on the basis that he was "Silenced" for his views it's hypocritical. It's also dishonest - most first time incompetent authors could only dream of the 'silencing' he received in the media.